World Is Getting Smaller 4
M&A Deals That Scares You

How Much You Overpay To The Devil
Must catch the successful box office of The Devil Wears Prada. Privately held Prada, which produces high-end clothes and accessories under the Prada and Miu Miu lines, has signed a preliminary agreement to sell a 5 percent stake in the company to its primary lender, Banca Intesa, in a deal that values the company at 2.75 billion euro (US$3.45 billion). My, my, imagine just how much you have been overpaying for Pradas and Miu Mius in order for the fashion house to be valued above US$3.0 billion??!! The bank paid 100 million euro for its stake in the designer and will lend the company an additional 200 million euro, which will go toward paying down debt and completing Prada’s acquisition of Britain’s Church’s Group. The deal, which could mark the first step toward the company’s long-awaited and oft-frustrated initial public offering. Then, you can buy your Pradas and also a slice of the company at the same time. The Devil wins again.

RSS Convergence
FeedBurner.com, which syndicates Web postings for 200,000 publisher has acquired blog analytics company BlogBeat.net for undisclosed terms. FeedBurner manages managing headline syndication services and operates a growing Web site advertising network. The deal will allow the company to provide publishers with tools to better understand what headline feeds blog site visitors are reading. FeedBurner has around 25 employees. It manages 346,000 syndicated feeds of blog posts, news stories, podcasts and other regularly updated Web information for 212,000 publishers, both large and small. The deal will provide publishers the most comprehensive picture of how their content is being distributed and consumed online. FeedBurner, which runs online news feeds for commercial publishers including Gannett, Hearst and Reuters and publications such as Crain's, Newsweek and Wired, will combine BlogBeat's blog analytic services with FeedBurner's existing free feed management services. The combination of the two services is set to be completed by fourth quarter. The company counts more than 19 million subscribers from around 190 countries to headline feeds it syndicates on behalf of its customers. FeedBurner has received $10 million in funding to date from venture capital investor Portage Venture Partners, SutterHill, Union Square, Mobius and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.